'Storybook ending' for Springboks' special star?

To appropriate a line from the 1990 hit by Mango Groove: ‘There’s a special star that shines’.

Cheslin Kolbe, at 172 centimetres and under 80 kilograms, was once regarded as ‘too small’ to be an international player.

However, the diminutive flyer is now a ‘giant’ in the Springbok setup – a staple and a key to how they play the game.

Michael R. Yormark, President of Roc Nation Sports International, said Kolbe’s difference from most players is his ‘mindset’.

“Cheslin looks at everything in his career as an opportunity,” Yormark told @king365ed.

Now, having experienced the game in several countries around the globe, he is ready to ‘shine’ – if selected – against Scotland, England and Wales – on the year-end tour.

“He has played in South Africa, France and now Japan – absolutely loving it,” the RNSI boss said of the 31-year-old.

“Everybody is different and everybody looks for something different in their careers,” Yormark said, adding: “Cheslin is passionate about the game, but he is also passionate about playing in different cultures and different countries.

“Through his career, he is experiencing the world.

“I salute him, because it is not easy to do that, especially when it often separates you from your family,” he said of the 38-times capped Bok’s odyssey.

Kolbe started in South Africa with the Stormers between 2012 and 2017, before making a highly successful move to French club Toulouse.

In 2019 Kolbe started for Toulouse in the Top 14 Final as the club went on to win the French Championship, while he was later named the Top 14 Player of the Season, and claimed the Try of the Season award.

In 2021, Kolbe won both the European Cup and the Top 14 with Toulouse, before then making a move across to Toulon, where he featured in the 2022 European Challenge Cup Final.

In 2023, Kolbe joined Tokyo Sungoliath and helped the club finish third in the Japan League One in his first season.

He is looking to bring that form – which also saw him featuring prominently in South Africa’s victorious Rugby Championship campaign – into the year-end tour.

While Kolbe is now settled in Japan, Yormark believes that “at some point” Kolbe will want to return to South Africa and finish his career in the Republic.

“It would be a storybook ending,” he said of Kolbe’s potential ‘homecoming’.

“I can see that happening,” Yormark told @rugby365com, adding: “I have had some conversations with him about that.

“It is on the radar screen.”

* Roc Nation Sports International is now inextricably linked to Rugby Union, but just five years ago the agency hardly took notice of a sport they barely knew existed.

Along came Siyamthanda Kolisi who piqued their interest, enough for them to learn more about the man who is the first-ever black Test captain of a Springbok team.

However, it was not the historic captaincy that won them over.

It was the way Kolisi conducted and carried himself that made the global brand realise he was just the person they were after.

Roc Nation Sports International, a sub-division of Roc Nation, was launched in 2019 and the rest, as they say, was history – Bok stars like Kolisi, Kolbe, Aphelele Fassi, Tendai Mtawarira, Jordan Hendrikse and several South African youngsters are now on the RNSI books.

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